Why MYSTERIES? Because that is the genre I read. Why PARADISE? Because that is where I live.
Among other things, this blog, the result of a 2008 New Year's resolution, will act as a record of books that I've read, and random thoughts.

23 June 2011

Review: THE SALTON KILLINGS, Sally Spencer

Drafted in from London to investigate the strangling of a teenager, Chief Inspector Woodend is an outspoken Northerner who does his policing the old-fashioned way: local knowledge and a healthy pinch of intuition. He is convinced that Margie Poole, daughter of the local landlady and the teenager's best friend, knows more about Dian Thorburn's last movements than she is prepared to tell. Woodend's enquiry turns up the death of another girl a generation before and the similarities look sinister. Is there a serial killer on the loose.

My take:

THE SALTON KILLINGS is set in a small salt mining village in Cheshire in the mid 50s. Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend, "Cloggin'- it Charlie", is a northerner, a bit of a misfit at Scotland Yard. He has a reputation of wearing out sergeants faster than you can get through shoe leather.

Rutter [Charlie's assigned sergeant for this case] finally caught sight of the DCI, a man in his middle forties, wearing a baggy check sports coat over a zipped knitted cardigan. ... Hair - light brown, no Brylcreem, unruly. Nose - nearly, but not quite, hooked. Mouth - wide. Jaw - square without being brutish. All in all, a pleasant but unremarkable face. Except for the eyes. They were dark, almost black, and the lids were like camera shutters, constantly clicking and registering.

If you are looking for a well constructed British police procedural then THE SALTON KILLINGS, the debut novel in Spencer's Woodend series, might hit the spot. It did for me. An almost undemanding and quick read, with many of the hall marks of a cozy. But Charlie Woodend is an interesting character. THE SALTON KILLINGS is written retrospectively. The Epilogue takes us to Woodend in retirement and looks back at the case. An interesting technique.